A few days ago I read a short, but insightful post by Amy Otto in which she perfectly branded the Democrat Party:
There are plenty center right ideas that have been largely abandoned by both parties. It’s time to brand the Democrats as the party of Big Everything. Big Government, Big Business, and Big Debt.
While I find that the above quote perfectly captures the essence of the Democrats, I’d like to one-up Amy and brand them the party of Grabby McGrab Hands. Childish? Yes. However, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate moniker after hearing about the recent “policy initiatives” from the left this past week. In a nutshell, the Democrats want to grab your guns, your money, and your freedom. This is just in the past week or so! So I thought I’d take a brief look at each.
Democrats Want To Grab Your Guns:
Anyone paying attention for the past few decades or so already know this to be true. From Diane Feinstein’s proposed ban on “assault” weapons (never mind that a leftist could define assault weapon if his or her life depended on it), to “Sheriff Joe” Biden’s so-called task-force on gun violence, it’s simply the same old story: the left wants to keep people from lawfully acquiring and possessing a firearm.
At the grass-roots level, I’m sure there are some well-meaning, but woefully uninformed folks who really think that banning guns would make us all safer. However, As I’ve written before, the gun control proponents in positions of power “actually care less about stopping this type of violence than they do for “disarming” the American citizenry, thereby ever-increasing the power of the state.” They’d rather use a tragedy to push a political agenda, rather than the root causes of the incident (more laws aren’t going to stop someone whose sole intent is to break the law).
Democrats Want To Grab Your Money
If you’re like me, you probably groaned (or more likely morse) over the fiscal cliff deal that passed Congress last week. If there was any positive from the deal, it was that the income cut-off for the higher rates was passed at $450K per year for a couple, as opposed to the $250K cut-off Obama wanted (how good is the $1 Million cut-off from “Plan B” looking now?). Of course the negatives include the fact that the job creators will be facing a higher tax burden, and creating class warfare in the tax code is despicable. There is never a good reason to raise taxes on anyone; doubly so when the economy is barely limping along.
Is that enough for the Democrats? Not according to San Fran Nan; they want even more of our money:
“The President had originally said he wanted $1.6 trillion in revenue,” she said on “Face the Nation.” “He took it down to 1.2 as a compromise in this legislation. We get $620 billion dollars, very significant, high-end tax, changing the high-end tax rate to 39.6 percent, but that is not enough on the revenue side.”
How much is enough, Nancy? Will there ever be enough? According to the quote, it looks like she wants to make up the $1 Trillion from Obama’s original goal, ostensibly through closing loopholes. Hello? closing loopholes were already put on the table, but rejected by the Democrats. Selective memory, anyone? The bottom line is how much is that the Democrats will not be happy until they run out of other people’s money to spend (h/t Margaret Thatcher).
Democrats Want To Grab Your Freedom
Nothing amuses me more that a leftist insisting that he or she is for civil liberties. Beyond the frequent cries of “hands off my body” or “keep the government out of my bedroom*”) is an insidious totalitarian agenda aimed at limiting freedoms (the gun-grabbing mentioned above is a fine example). Another good example is the insurance mandate of which we are all aware that may force employers to violate their freedom of religion in order to provide free contraceptives and abortifacients to employees.
However, I really wanted to highlight the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that Obama signed this past week. This a great example of talking a good game (e.g. closing GITMO), while doing the opposite (the NDAA prohibits the transfer of prisoners from there. In addition, it allows for the indefinite detention of American citizens that “substantially supported” our enemies or their “associated forces.” Are those terms defined? OF course not. Let’s not even talk about American citizens on tough-guy Obama’s “kill list”. Last but not least, the NDAA still authorizes warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. Due process, what’s that?
To be fair, many of these things are continuations of provisions included in the PATRIOT Act. However, for a group that wants you to believe that these policies were an abomination under Bush, they seem awfully happy to keep on approving, using, and expanding them.
If all of this doesn’t convince you that the Democrats are a party of “grabbers”, nothing will. My advice is to hold on to your hats, though, because there’s no telling what they’ll try to grab next. In the words of Depeche Mode:
The grabbing hands grab all they can
All for themselves, after all
Animus Turbare 